


A single syllable

by withered



Series: liminal space [28]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Not your teeange romance, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Sex, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:00:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28711644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered
Summary: Ichigo does not love Rukia. If only it were that easy.
Relationships: Kuchiki Rukia/Kurosaki Ichigo
Series: liminal space [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1413535
Comments: 23
Kudos: 88





	A single syllable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pomegranate_Kore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pomegranate_Kore/gifts).



> For kishara-hime who recommended "Young and Beautiful" in my tumblr asks a lifetime ago, and prompted this fic~

Ichigo does not love Rukia.

If only it could be that simple.

Because Ichigo -- Ichigo knows what love is. He remembers what his parents had been before his mother had -- and his father had just...

Ichigo knows what love is, and it is not what Rukia inspires.

At least not in the way of candy hearts and rambling Instagram posts. What he feels for her is not love in the way that other people would understand, though that is what they think of when they ask it of him: do you think of dancing in the glow of the refrigerator light, and staring longingly into each other's eyes?

Yes, and no. 

The "yes" is easy, expected. The "no" is. Harder.

So, Ichigo doesn't say anything at all. It's as much an answer as they're going to get, and they'll take it however way they want. It'll still be wrong, though, that much is true.

Because Ichigo knows what he is, what he's strived to be: a protector, like his mother hoped he would be when she'd named him. 

And thanks to Rukia, he is.

But the way his name breaks on Rukia's tongue, that tremble at the first syllable; Ichigo becomes something else.

He does not feel a great urge to protect when the blue of her eyes turn to ink, when she's got claws in his flesh to pair with the brutal, delicious snap of her hips against his.

Ichigo is not a protector then.

What blooms in him is not loving and tender. It is monstrous and consuming, and with every break of his name on her lips, is the reminder: One. The one. Her one. _The only one._ He punctuates each declaration with a press of his lips on her skin, the imprint of his fingers on her body the shape of crescents, the color of bruises.

Her body arches, sliding so close to his that it's hard to tell where he ends and she begins, Ichigo shudders to think even this is not enough. 

Nothing ever will be, he's come to realize.

And that. 

That is how he knows it's not love.

Protectors are not selfish. They can't be. Their purpose is in caring for others despite themselves, and selfishness has no place in that. Most of the time, Ichigo pulls it off.

With Rukia though, he can't.

He hadn't lied when he told people the first time that he wasn't saving Rukia because of a debt. He doesn't owe her. From the day she'd strong-armed him into becoming her substitute, he knew she didn't see the sacrifice of her powers as anything more than something that needed to be done, what would become of her didn't factor into the equation.

Ichigo had been angry, he remembers, when she'd been elusive about what she intended to do if her powers didn't come back. Because he hadn't been selfish yet. She hadn't made him aware that he _could_ be selfish yet. Because he was still the protector he thought he could be. Because this was before he realized he couldn't do the one thing he thought he could, and he'd lost her.

He'd seen her cry that night -- sees it with almost every nightmare -- and he couldn't --

In his mind's eye, it was like watching the fall of a single droplet hurtling from the sky and hitting the pavement, shattering like glass on the concrete before the storm started in earnest, and all he could think about was how much it was raining.

And, _when had it stopped?_ And, _why hadn't I noticed?_

With hindsight, he knows it should've been obvious. Everyone from school, and even at home, had suspected Rukia's part. He hadn't.

Not until she was taken. Not until she chose to leave to protect him.

That's when he knew that protecting her, in turn, was not his agenda.

Not when all he thought about was ripping Byakuya and Renji to pieces, his black robes dripping with their blood, and taking Rukia home where she belonged. 

And wasn't that a revelation?

To belong.

He doesn't remember the last time he felt he belonged, and he knows -- from the grief on Rukia's face when she thinks no one is looking -- that she feels the same, if she'd ever felt she belonged anywhere at all.

But she did now.

She belonged with him.

And him with her.

So when people asked, after that second separation when the world lost all color and the skies opened up, if he missed her, he said nothing because that was a thought so ridiculous it made him want to tear everything down all over again. Her happiness was sunshine on his skin, and her pain felt like a gnawing at his heart. Rukia was less a person he knew and more a part of him. To be deprived of any awareness of her at all felt like death.

If only that could be so simple.

If he had loved her, he would have been content to give her the life she wanted from him: a life free from the fighting and the bloodshed, but he knew death long before she came along, and violence was the first language he ever learned with any kind of fluency.

If he loved Rukia, he could have pretended that wanting his powers back, wanting to protect as she'd taught him, was all he wanted. There is goodness in that part of him, Ichigo knows, and it would be enough for someone like Inoue who imagines him to be some kind of knight. But that kind of deception, that kind of blindness would not be love, not in any capacity.

He wants his powers back selfishly because he knows what his world is like without rain, and it wasn't fair to know it and then turn him out into the endless torrent again.

It was punishment, felt like abandonment, and he'd been furious.

So when they collided after, he unleashes it on her, agonizing in its intensity and ruthless in its devastation: And if Rukia had loved him, she might have put a stop to it. She might have told him that this wasn't him. She might have bargained with his better demons, could have claimed it was his Hollow, but Rukia has known him from the start.

Hichigo has never been interested in niceties, in social norms; in pretty, shallow things that can shield the rain but cannot stop it. He had never liked Ichigo's willingness to accept whatever he could get, he didn't have Ichigo's patience.

And now, neither of them do.

Rukia accepts it like she'd always known. Like she'd been waiting for it.

Mouth red like a slash across her face, she sets it on him like she'd rip his throat out if given the opportunity. Ichigo bears his neck to let her, and though he feels her teeth sink, he also hears the distinct clatter of his belt coming undone; of his pants being shoved down.

There is nothing gentle in their coupling, nothing loving in their embrace. It's every fight they've ever had, every petty argument they've ever exchanged, every battle that's ever separated them.

It's the sharp hiss between her teeth when he sheaths himself inside her, the toss of her head against the floor as she brokenly says his name, the roughened _ah-ah-ahs_ she pulls from him as he fucks into her to bury himself as deep as he can.

Like Rukia can feel his intention, like she knows every line of every sin he's ever thought of committing, she tugs at his neck and pulls at his hair, and passes judgment into his ear, "Don't let me go."

And at that, he smiles, too sharp, too dark. The kiss he presses to her cheek feels mocking. "Have I ever let you before?"

She sets her teeth against his shoulder, fucks hard down into him, and relishes at his shudder with a soothing stroke down his back. "Yes."

He huffs a breath, readjusts her, thrusts a little too hard, a cheap shot, and licks at the tear that escapes down her cheek. "Only because you asked me to."

As always, Rukia never lets him get away with anything. The vice around him squeezes, leaving him breathless and stuttering as she challenges in turn, "Then don't let me ask."

He sees her then, as he's always seen her: Rukia, giving and righteous to a fault, always choosing the path that is better for others, always doing what needs to be done, asking him not to let her be good.

Asking him to be selfish for them both.

If Ichigo loved her, this would be enough.

To know her in all the ways no one else ever will.

But it's not.

With Rukia, it never is.

He wants her to be selfish too. 

_Choose me before all others. Choose me always. Stay with me, only me._ He leaves these pleas on her skin, on the most intimate parts of herself, on the places only he has touched.

Her reply is a gasp, his name broken on that single syllable, a tremble, an answering desperation, " _please_."

Ichigo does not love Rukia.

It's not that easy.

But in the aftermath, his head on her chest, her heartbeat beneath his ear, her fingers in his hair and their legs intertwined; panels of a dying sunset drenching their naked skins in gold and purple, Ichigo thinks that the word would have to do.

**Author's Note:**

> I've really been about "villainous" romances lately and while this fic isn't especially dark, it was kind of in that very vague vein. 
> 
> [Say hi~](https://everything-withered.tumblr.com/ask)


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